Health Care and Unions!

Arrrrgh! Isn't it obvious that corporations need to get out of the health care business and concentrate on whatever product or service they are building. The reason that businesses offer health care is because it attracts employees since good health care is expensive. If the government offered good health care, or if the same health care cost the same for everyone, then there would be no need for businesses to offer these services. Pretty soon, the cost is going to be prohibitive and they will all stop offering health services anyway. The problem will fix itself. How? All sick people will die and then there won't be any need for doctors.

So American auto builders that have been cutting corners to create crappy cars for the past 30 years are now going to layoff 30,000 workers to start. Hopefully McDonald's will offer as good a health care package when they all start working there. I recently checked on the price of COBRA for my company if I have to leave for some unexpected reason and it's $978 a month. I still have a $35 copay when I go to the doctor (because I usually can't get the $10 appointment with my primary care physician), so if my family goes to the doctor 10 times a year, we're looking at about $13,000 a year not including prescriptions. If I get a job making $10 an hour, then this is 62.5% of my income assuming that I don't have to pay any income tax. Why is this example not enough to convince the unions, the government and the people of this country that we have to fix this?

Everyone believes that if we offer real insurance to the people who don't have it, our insurance premiums will go up because they are probably sicker, or more likely to abuse this service. Someone needs to explain the concept of insurance. The more people that subscribe and pay, the less each person pays (in a non-corrupt system). Also, if there are more people who make claims, there are more people to bear the burden of extra costs. Additionally, most people who are really sick will still get treatment anyway, but they will either borrow and default causing you to pay more in other areas including the cost of services, or they will burden friends and family with those costs which is still unfair (especially if that's you!).

There are lots of worldwide examples of success in national health care systems and we are the only industrialized country in the world that ties health care to the corporate interests. If you think that is a good business model that will get you the cheapest, efficient and effective health care services, then you are even more naive than I thought.